


Of Epiphanies and Starlight

by Elle_Nahiara



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Lance (Voltron) Speaks Spanish, M/M, Some sadness, mentions of Lance's family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 20:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13084512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elle_Nahiara/pseuds/Elle_Nahiara
Summary: Lance and Shiro look at the stars





	Of Epiphanies and Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift for the Shance Secret Santa 2017, but you might also enjoy it :)

If there was something Lance related stargazing to, it was  _ The Lion King.  _ Forever etched in his memory was  _ that  _ scene: the epic music, the Great Kings of the Past. Wise words, important lessons meant to help you hold on and yet let go. Big Moments. Trademark.

Even in the Garrison, when the skies were the aim, it always seemed so… impressive. So incredible. The stars seemed almost unreachable, but damn if he wouldn’t do his best to get as close as he could. Lance McClain did not give up easily, if at all.

But now... now the stars were so close. He’d never thought about how, being in space, night would be the perpetual state, the natural way for things to be. And stars, their usual companion. 

One would think that people would grow used to such a sight. Well, maybe so. Pidge simply did not bother with it, too practical to marvel at nature. Keith certainly didn’t seem to care about it, probably linking stargazing to his shack and general loneliness. Hunk seemed to reserve his stargazing moments for Shay. Allura and Coran? For them it meant remembering they were forcibly away from their planet, forever, no hope of ever returning. And even Lance, sometimes, stared out of the windows of the castle and thought “Oh great. Stars again,” missing the light blue skies of Earth, how they reflected on the sea. The sea that bathed his family in Varadero, his sisters teasing him and throwing water at him. His nephews and nieces, his cousins. Small moments. 

Stars were meant for epiphanies, for realizing how small you were in the grand scheme of things. The sunlight was for those things you always took for granted, right up until the moment you lost them.

Lance sighed.

“You are thinking of them, aren’t you?” Suddenly, reality came crashing down on Lance, making him realize he was actually in the Castle’s observation deck. 

And walking towards him…

“Sorry,” Shiro said, with a small laugh, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Lance decided not to protest; he wasn’t startled, after all. It was just a better excuse to explain the way his heart sped up. 

“It’s okay. I should be paying more attention.” He shrugged easily, gesturing to the seat by his. “I’d missed you.” It was mostly a joke. On Lance immediately regretted when Shiro replied with:

“Well, I was captured by the Galra. Couldn’t exactly come join you.”

“Right,” he sighed. Stupid Lance. Sure, he had grown used to having Shiro join him there almost weekly, ever since the day he’d caught Lance losing sleep there, whilst trying to avoid sleeping himself. Instead of chastising him, he’d joined him. It had been the first time Lance had actually spoken out about how he missed Earth at length. From then on, it had become a bit of a routine. 

That had been before their plan against Zarkon and Shiro’s mysterious disappearance. Lance had grown re-used to being alone on the deck, wallowing on his own ordinary misery.

“Right,” he repeated. “Sorry for reminding you of it. I know you don’t want to talk about it.”

Shiro sat by his side, a tired chuckle escaping his lips. “It’s not so much I don’t want to. More like I can’t. I don’t remember much.”

“Again, huh?” Lance made a face full of compassion. Maybe he couldn’t exactly understand what it was like missing big chunks of memory, but he understood having something important taken away. 

Ah, there he was, being selfish again.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Shiro insisted. “You are thinking of your family, aren’t you?”

Lance shrugged, and spoke with fake chirpiness, “What else is new, right?”

“ _ Lance _ ,” he said, in that strict tone that made Lance freeze and melt at the same time. Then, voice softer, Shiro continued, “Did you talk to someone while I was gone?”

“I tried. Keith… made an attempt to understand, but…”  _ He’s not you. _

“Ah, Keith.” Shiro said, with fondness. He then hesitated for a moment. “I know it’s been awhile, but… do you want to-?”

“Yes,” Lance answered before he could finish. On their nights alone, they had established a strange sort of intimacy. The kind that people on Earth would have whispered about. The kind that people in Voltron still would have at least raised an eyebrow at, despite their best attempts. Even Lance sometimes wondered what in hell he was doing, and he was the one sitting between Shiro’s legs, his back almost pressed against the Black Paladin’s broad chest.

He wondered if Shiro also got nervous as his hands reached to take the armor off Lance and then began rubbing the younger one’s shoulders. He told himself that was hoping for too much.

“You want to talk about them?” Shiro asked. 

“What is there I haven’t told you already?” Lance asked, closing his eyes.

Shiro laughed, and Lance could feel the slight shake of his body as he did so. “Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I?”

“Smart guy, aren’t you?” he huffed. He stayed silent for a moment. “My aunt, the one who lives in Cuba-”

“Sorry to interrupt. That one was Adriana or Carmen?”

“Neither.”

“Ah, Blanca, then.”

Lance chuckled. “Correct. Well, you know she has this house in Varadero, right? I was just thinking of the last time we all visited her. It was a big family gathering, you know, for my grandma’s eightieth birthday.”

Shiro nodded, encouraging him to go on. But Lance didn’t. “And…?”

“And nothing.” He shrugged. “I know usually I have some… crazy story to tell about my family, a joke or something. I’m sure there are… but right now I can’t remember those. I just remember small things. I remember being happy.”

For a moment, Shiro stopped rubbing his shoulders. “You are not happy now.”

Lance opened his eyes and threw his head back, resting it on Shiro’s shoulder and glancing up at him. “It’s not that I’m not happy. It’s just… everything in here… it’s so… big.”

Shiro looked at him and frowned slightly. Lance couldn’t stop thinking about how close he was. “Big?”

“You know! Big. Space is big. The war is important. We are saving the universe. I get to be with a princess and a bunch of heroes.”  _ Not to mention you, the biggest hero of all. _

“Lance,” this time it was kinder, as Shiro moved his human hand to run his fingers through Lance’s hair. “You sound… overwhelmed.”

“I am!” he admitted. “Aren’t you?”

“Well… yeah. But, you know, I always wanted to do something to make a difference.”

“Did you think it was going to be an intergalactic difference, though?” Lance asked, the fingers playing with his hair slowly making him calm down when he hadn’t even realized he was anxious. 

“I… hoped it would be something that important. Didn’t hope it would have to be a war.” He sighed. 

“So you see why I’m kind of… yeah. It’s not that I’m not happy. It’s just that, well, I miss small moments. You know? Things that are not life-changing but make you feel good.”

Shiro seemed to think about that for a moment, in which Lance relaxed against his chest. “Does… does  _ this  _ make you feel good?”

Lance could almost  _ hear  _ the embarrassment in Shiro’s voice. Bless him. “Well… yeah. Wouldn’t do it if it didn’t.”

Another moment of silence. “Well, this is not life-changing.”

Scowling, Lance cracked one eye open. “Your point being?”

Yet another quiet while. “This is a small moment.” 

Lance was reluctant to agree. The moments he got to spend with Shiro… they were so important to him. It almost hurt to hear him call them ‘small’. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“I’m not saying… I don’t mean- It’s not like… I’m going to shut up.” 

What was that? Shiro? Mumbling? “Out with it.” 

“Just open your eyes and look at the stars. That’s what people do when stargazing.” Shiro sounded flustered, so Lance did, indeed, open his eyes, but he looked at  _ him _ . And sure enough, he looked flustered.

“Tell me, Takashi,” he insisted.

Shiro swallowed thickly, his chest rising as he did so. “I’m not saying this doesn’t matter. I’m just saying… you know… there’s nothing special about- No, there is. I mean, not special, as in- I guess kinda special, but… urgh, I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.”

Lance raised an eyebrow and then cracked up. “I didn’t know you ever spoke without thinking.”

“I try to hide it as best as I can,” Shiro chuckled after a moment, his face slightly red. It was adorable. “... Can we change the topic?”

Lance looked at the stars, breathing deeply. “Sure, what to?”

“Well, anything. Tell me how to say ‘overwhelmed’ in Spanish?”

“Oh, we are going for harder words now, aren’t we, Shirogane? Maybe next time you could actually try for a sentence.”

“Just tell me the word.”

Lance took a little while to remember the word. It had been awhile since he’d spoken more than a few words in Spanish. He missed having conversations in it. “ _ Abrumado _ .” 

“So it’s like…  _ Lance es abrumado _ .”

Lance wagged his finger. “ _ Estar, no ser.” _

“Right. Right.  _ Lance está abrumado.” _

“Yep. Very good. Now I feel bad in  _ two  _ languages.”

Shiro snorted. “Sorry, Lance. I was just curious. I can ask for… something else?”

“It’s fine. Just kidding.”

“And if I ask you why, you’d say...”

“ _ Extraño a mi familia. _ I miss my family.”

“Right.” Shiro rested his chin on Lance’s shoulder, no longer petting his hair, his arms hanging loosely by Lance’s sides.

They both remained quiet. 

When he’d first started stargazing with Shiro, Lance had thought that he’d mysteriously find a solution for his homesickness. That Shiro would give him wise words and lessons on how to hold on and yet let go. He’d thought he’d get some epiphany on how the galaxy was worth more than the McClains, eagerly waiting for their disappeared son to return, looking up at the stars, searching for him, just like Lance himself searched for Earth in the foreign skies. 

The only epiphany he’d had was that there was yet another person he would miss if he ever were to lose him.

Because Shiro, just like the stars, had turned from unreachable to a constant companion. Unlike the stars, however, Lance never wished  _ him _ gone. Now that he’d missed him, he felt that more than ever. It tore him apart - it kept him whole. 

It made his heart beat painfully inside his chest, but his heart beating meant he was alive. 

“So,  _ extrañar. _ That is ‘to miss’?”

“Mhmm.” Lance muttered, yawning.

“You want to go to sleep?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Lance’s eyelids began to feel heavy, nonetheless. But he knew it was the warmth and safety that Shiro provided that made him at ease enough to be sleepy. Had he gone to his room, that would have disappeared, and he would be hit by the memory of home.

“So, the past of extrañar is, in first person…  _ extrañé? _ ”

“Yes,” he curled up against Shiro’s chest, sitting across his lap unthinkingly. Shiro held him in his arms.

And then, more silence. Lance was drifting off into peaceful sleep, where a dreamland Shiro and the rest would meet his other, biological family. A dreamland where his sisters would tease him about the way Lance would gaze longingly at Shiro, hoping he’d gaze back. Lance could almost see it now.

“ _ Te extrañé, Lance. _ ”

Shiro’s voice was warm like the sun and yet it slapped him across the face.

Lance opened his eyes fully. He hadn’t realized he hadn’t closed them. And looking at him, warm expression morphed into shocked one, was Shiro. Shiro, whose face quickly grew red and looked away.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Lance impulsively reached out to touch Shiro’s face, making him turn to glance at him again, gently. “You missed me?” he asked, voice full of wonder.

Shiro looked surprised for a moment, then amused. Then infinitely fond. “Of course I did.” 

Stars were meant for epiphanies. 

“I thought maybe I wouldn’t get to hold you again,” Shiro continued, his eyes filled with something Lance could only call determination.

And the sunlight was meant for things you took for granted.

“You definitely haven’t held me enough.”

But the sun was a star. 

“There’s something else I haven’t done.”

So sunlight was starlight.

“Oh, is there? What is it?” 

And that probably meant something greater in the grand scheme of things.

“This.”

But then Shiro was kissing him and Lance decided, rather than figure it out, he wanted to enjoy the moment.


End file.
